Page 19 of Watch Me

Tate stands, and this time when the bartender looks over he keeps his eyes locked on us. He’s about to call Patrick, I can tell from his body language, and he’s no longer looking at me to see if I want him to call it off. He’s at a code yellow.

“How is that okay, Zoë? I’m home alone every night, telling myself you’re working, that you need the money, and you’re here doing God knows what with any fucking guy willing to pay. So you’re a fucking prostitute now?”

The bartender is holding his hand up, signaling. Patrick’s bald head, an inch taller than anyone else’s, is visible in the crowd, cutting a path toward us.

“Tate—“ I start, voice clipped, heat rising up my neck. I’m seething. But I don’t have time to say anything else by the time Patrick has his hand on Tate’s arm.

“It’s cool,” says Tate quickly, still angry. “I’m going. I’m leaving.”

He holds his hands up as he stands and turns away without saying another word, walking quickly with Patrick on his heels. A minute later, I see Steve pull out his phone and then start gathering up the rest of the boys. They leave, oblivious to the fact that I am sitting here watching them.

“You okay?” asks the bartender, and I nod my head quickly.

But I’m not okay. Not really. Now this unresolved conversation with Tate awaits me when I get home, and the embarrassment of being escorted out by security is only going to ratchet up his anger. Not to mention the possibility of running into Nick at the house, too.

My distraction level is at an all-time high, and the only thing I can think of that might take my mind off things is hitting the stage again and trying to lose myself in the music.

“Actually…” I lean over the bar to catch the bartender’s attention and give him a wave. “Do you have any coffee?”

NICK

THE MOANING STARTS out softly—so quiet I don’t hear it at first, but it gets louder until it’s practically screaming, and then there’s no denying what I’m hearing.

Tate and Zoë are having sex.

Good lord.

This is a big house. For me to hear her two floors up, Zoë has to be making a hell of a lot of noise. And she is—shouting so loudly that the neighbors can probably hear her, too.

As if it isn’t bad enough that I unintentionally fell for my son’s girlfriend, now I’ll have to listen to him fuck her every night while I try not to get aroused. This is fucked up.

Although… Jesus. I sit up in bed and shake my head in disbelief. Maybe hearing her make these noises will help me get over her. It sounds so fake, so theatrical, that it’s off-putting. I didn’t think she would be like that at all.

In the VIP booth, when we were together, every sound that came out of her mouth ratcheted my own arousal up higher and higher. It was breathy, authentic, real. This sounds like someone turned the pornography up to the loudest volume, but when I hear a scream of “Yes, Tate!” I know it’s real life.

The noise goes on longer than I think I can stand until, eventually, I give up the idea of even trying to sleep. Even though it will bring me closer to Tate’s basement bedroom, I pull on pajama pants and go downstairs to pour myself a scotch. It can’t be any worse down there than it is up here, anyway.

But it is—oh, it is. The ecstatic screaming reverberates down the first-floor hall, bouncing off the walls.

I’m so certain it’s Zoë with Tate—because who else could it be?—that when I walk into the kitchen and see her sitting at the island, my mind at first cannot compute.

How can she be here when she’s down there?

She turns to look at me, the perfect symmetry of her heart-shaped face drawn together. No tears on her cheeks, no redness, but the grim look in her eyes tells me everything I need to know. I sigh as the reality of the situation hits me. Then I step into the room, walk mechanically toward the cupboard, pull down my bottle of Balvenie, and hold it up to her.

“Drink?”

She nods without saying a word, her messy topknot of blonde hair bobbing with the motion. I pull down two glasses and pour generously, sliding one glass over to her and then taking a seat beside her.

“Thank you.”

Zoë takes a long sip. She sucks her breath in, surprised by the taste, and then blows out sharply, and I resist the urge to laugh. She’s obviously not a scotch drinker. But gamely, after blinking her eyes a few times, she picks up the glass and tries again.

For several long, uncomfortable minutes, we sit in silence against the backdrop of moans and squeals. It’s so fucked, but I don’t know what to do about it, so we just sit there, sipping our drinks and staring into the middle distance, waiting it out.

My gut says she needs the company right now, although, for all I know Tate and Zoë could have some kind of arrangement. Because she works as a stripper, maybe he gets to have sex with people on the side, I don’t know. But her current discomfort is clear, and my heart goes out to her as she sits there drinking, the line of her mouth tight and shoulders hunched inside of the oversized sweatshirt she’s wearing.

She’s a smaller version of the woman I’ve seen at the club, folded in on herself, with no sign of her luminous smile. It kills me to see her like this, with her spark dulled. I’m ashamed to think that my son would do this to anyone.

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